Packaging maker Sinea expands into recycled PET sheet with Gneuss

Multinational plastic packaging manufacturer Sinea, a unit of the Spanish IG Group with a strong presence in caps for soft drinks and polypropylene industrial woven sacks, expanded into recycling of PET bottles in 2008.

Sinea recently acquired an additional machine to produce PET sheet, with MRS technology from Germany-based Gneuss Kunststofftechnik GmbH. The system allows the processing of mixed reclaim material from the washing line directly into a uniform sheet, with no restrictions, Gneuss said. A Food and Drug Administration letter of no objection means the sheet can be used for food packaging.

The two companies also worked together several years ago to retrofit a Gneuss Filtration System onto Sinea’s first sheet line.

The MRS extruder allows the gentle processing of reclaim and additives while offering a very high capacity for devolatilization. The melt is delivered into a large, single-screw drum that contains eight small extruder barrels, parallel to the main screw axis. Satellite screws are driven by a ring gear in the main barrel, and they rotate in the opposite direction to the main screw, while they rotate around the screw axis.

This setup greatly increases the surface area interaction of the melt. Undried and uncrystallized PET bottle flakes can be processed directly, saving energy and maintenance costs and avoid thermal degradation.

The MRS extruder gently processes and decontaminates the flakes. A simple water-ring vacuum system does venting.

Gneuss is based in Bad Oeynhausen. Its U.S. unit, Gneuss Inc., is in Matthews. Ga.